Prunable

User guide

Prunable is a Mac app that shows every app on your iPhone or iPad with its real size, what it keeps, how often you open it and what it can ask for, and then helps you remove what you don't need, tidy the Home Screen and free up space. This guide covers Prunable 1.0.1 on macOS 14 or later. For connection problems and the list of things iOS doesn't let any Mac do, see Support.

Two promises hold everywhere in the app. Nothing about your device leaves your Mac: Prunable fetches only public information (App Store details, Apple's list of software updates, its own updates, and your license check if you buy Pro). And nothing changes on the device unless you say so: every removal and every Home Screen change asks first.

1. Installing and connecting a device

Installing. Open the downloaded disk image and drag Prunable onto Applications, as the arrow in the window shows. Then open it from Launchpad or the Applications folder; it keeps itself up to date from there. If you open Prunable straight from Downloads or from the disk image instead, it offers once to move itself to Applications for you (choose Not Now or Don't ask again if you'd rather it stayed where it is).

Connecting. The first time, use a cable. After that, Wi-Fi works too.

1. Open Prunable. The Setup Guide opens on the first launch and walks through everything in this section with live checks; you can bring it back any time from Help › Setup Guide….
2. Plug the iPhone or iPad into the Mac with a cable that carries data. Some charging-only cables don't, and the device then charges but never appears.
3. Unlock the device with its passcode. When it asks "Trust This Computer?", tap Trust and enter the passcode again. This happens once per Mac.
4. Prunable connects and starts scanning on its own.

Over Wi-Fi. With the device plugged in, open Finder, click the device under Locations, and in the General tab tick Show this iPhone when on Wi-Fi, then Apply. From then on Prunable finds the device whenever both are on the same network and the device is awake. Scans are slower over Wi-Fi, and a cable wins whenever one is plugged in. Bluetooth is not possible: iOS doesn't manage apps over Bluetooth for any Mac app.

If a device isn't listed. Click Look for Devices at the bottom of the sidebar (or ⌥⌘R). Prunable also looks every 20 seconds on its own while nothing is connected. For a device that has dropped off Wi-Fi discovery, select it and choose File › Connect to … Now (⇧⌘K): Prunable dials it where it last answered, then searches the rest of your network.

What the sidebar tells you. Under each device's name, a line says whether it is connected over USB or Wi-Fi, locked, waiting for you to tap Trust, or can't be reached. The page in the middle says what to do in each case. Reading works while the device is locked, once it has been unlocked at least once since plugging in.

2. The scan

A scan runs in passes: app names and icons first, then each app's size (the device measures them, which takes a minute or two on a full phone), then App Store details for every app. The table fills in as each pass finishes. A size shows "n/a" until it has been measured; Prunable never estimates one.

• Scan again with ⌘R, the Scan button in the toolbar, or right-click the device and choose Scan Now. The previous scan stays on screen while the new one runs.
• Prunable rescans by itself when an app is installed or removed on the device while it is connected.
• Every finished scan is saved on the Mac, so an offline device still shows its last scan on every page.
• When the Mac is offline, store details are marked unavailable and everything else keeps working.

3. Finding your way around

The sidebar lists All Devices at the top, then every device this Mac has met, each with its pages:

• Start: the three things people come to do, and anything that needs attention first.
• Dashboard (⌘1): everything at a glance, in tiles you can arrange.
• Apps (⌘2): every app with its sizes, store details, warnings and screen time.
• Home Screen (⌘3): your Home Screen drawn as the device shows it, and editable.
• Free Up Space: say how much room you need and get safe suggestions.
• Phone Change: setting up a new device, or handing this one on.
• Check-Up: a plain-English report on storage, battery and backups.
• Insights (⌘4): what changed since an earlier scan, what's worth a look, and privacy.
• Reinstall List (⌘5): what you had, grouped by category, with App Store links.
• Overview (⌘6): the device's facts, storage, carrier, battery and backups.

The Recycle Bin sits at the bottom left of the sidebar. Apps you plan to delete gather there until you review and confirm (section 6). Help › Show Tips replays the short tour from the first launch; Prunable › Settings turns the tips on or off at launch, opens the Setup Guide and Stored Data. Help › Prunable User Guide (⌘?) opens this page.

4. Start and Dashboard

Start asks what you'd like to do: free up space, deal with a phone change, or check battery, backups and health. Above those, it lists anything that needs attention first, such as a backup that is old or missing. Back Up in Finder opens Finder on the device; click Back Up Now there and Prunable notices when the backup finishes.

Dashboard shows numbers (apps, space they use, free space, apps to think twice about, apps gone from the store, the Recycle Bin, and more) and tiles: the device with its live Home Screen, a storage ring, space by category, largest apps, free vs paid, App Store status, flagged apps, files you can manage, backups, app use, battery, recent deletions. Every tile and number links to the matching page or filtered list, and a "‹ Back to Dashboard" bar brings you back.

Click Customize Dashboard… to arrange it. Drag a tile into a column, between two tiles or below the last one. Use − to remove a tile, add any tile from the row at the bottom, and Reset to Default if you change your mind. Right-click a tile for Move to Top, Move Earlier, Move Later and Remove. The layout is kept on this Mac.

5. Apps: the list, the grid and the details

The Apps page lists every app you installed. Apple's built-in apps are managed on the device itself and are not listed. Switch between a list and a grid of icons with the toolbar control; both sort the same way.

Columns. Name, Total Size, App Size, Data Size (what the app stores), Category, Current App Store price, Warnings and Screen Time. Click a heading to sort. The price is always today's store price; Prunable never claims to know what you paid. "No store listing" means the App Store no longer lists the app, which matters before deleting it (section 6).

Search with the field in the toolbar. Filters (Pro, except All Apps) narrow the list:

• Largest 25, Free, Paid, Offers In-App Purchases, Rated 17+ or Higher, Social & Chat: from the store listing.
• No Store Listing: can't be downloaded again once deleted.
• Think Twice: authenticators, password managers, wallets, carrier, messaging and finance apps.
• Not Opened Lately: not opened in the period Prunable has watched (section 14).
• Shares Files: apps whose Documents folder you can open from the Mac (section 7).
• Location in Background, Asks to Track: from the permissions the app declares.
• Offloaded: removed by iOS to save space, data kept (they show with a cloud on the Home Screen).
• Crashed While Watched: appeared in the device's own crash reports since Prunable first connected.
• From Another Apple Account: bought with a different Apple Account than most apps on the device.

The details pane opens on the right when you select an app: its icon as the device draws it, store name, seller, description and category, the sizes, where it sits on the Home Screen ("Page 2 › Utilities"), screen time and opens for the watched period, crashes and memory from the device's reports, the permissions it can ask for in the app's own words, its background modes, whether its documents can be saved to the Mac, and a warning if it is one to think twice about. Buttons there and in the right-click menu:

• Add to Recycle Bin and Uninstall Now… (section 6).
• Show on Home Screen (⇧⌘L): switches to the Home Screen page, opens the folder and pulses the tile.
• View in the App Store.
• Show Documents & Files… and Export… for apps that share files (section 7).
• Get AI Help Before Deleting… and Ask AI How to Clear Its Data…: Prunable writes a question naming only the app and its kind, shows it to you, and opens it in Google AI Mode or Duck.ai (no account needed), or copies it for any assistant you use.
• Add to Privacy Checklist (section 10).
• Move to "Maybe Delete" Folder for Two Weeks (section 9).

A link from the Dashboard, Insights or Overview that opens a filtered list shows a "‹ Back to…" bar above the table; Show All Apps clears the filter.

6. Deleting apps safely

Deleting an app removes it and everything it stored on the device, exactly as deleting it on the device would. There is no undo. There is the App Store, if the app is still listed, and your backup, for the data. Prunable is built around that fact.

Gather first. Put apps in the Recycle Bin with the Delete key, ⌘T, the toolbar, the right-click menu, or by dragging them onto the bin from the list, the grid or the Home Screen. Nothing is removed yet. The bin is kept per device, so you can come back later. ⇧⌘T shows and hides its contents; Leave on Device takes an app back out.

Review. Click Empty… on the bin (or select apps and use Uninstall Now…, ⌘⌫, for a single step). The review sheet lists each app, how much space the deletion frees, and anything to deal with first:

• A Think Twice warning with the specific thing to do before deleting: move your authenticator codes, export your password vault, note your eSIM, check your banking app's second factor, back up local-only chat history. Serious warnings must be ticked before you can continue.
• Not on the App Store anymore: after deleting, it can't be downloaded again. Must be ticked.
• Offers in-app purchases: deleting an app doesn't cancel its subscription. Check Settings › your name › Subscriptions on the device.
• Documents you can save first: apps that share files are named, with an Export button.
• Your backups: how old the last iCloud and Mac backups are. If they are stale, back up first.
• Apple Watch: deleting an iPhone app also removes its Watch app.
• Can this device delete apps at all? Screen Time restrictions or a management profile can forbid it. Prunable says so, and says where the setting is, instead of failing halfway.

Confirm. A last "Uninstall N apps now?" asks once more. Then the apps are removed one by one with progress, and the device's free space is read again.

Afterwards. Every deletion made with Prunable is recorded in Deletion History on the Insights page (⇧⌘H), and the apps appear in the Reinstall List under "Include Removed", so you can find them again.

7. Files inside an app

Some apps share their files with a computer (video players, document readers, some games). For those, Prunable can open the app's Documents folder from the Mac, copy it, and delete files inside it without deleting the app. The Shares Files filter, the Dashboard's "Files you can manage" tile and a link under the storage ring all lead to them.

• Export… copies the folder to a place you choose on the Mac, keeping modification dates.
• Show Documents & Files… opens the folder in its own window with sizes and dates. Select files and choose Delete Selected… (Pro). It asks twice; there is no trash on the device, so export first if you may want the files back. Afterwards the app is measured again so the table stays honest.

Every other app keeps its data closed to a Mac on a non-jailbroken device. For those, Prunable says so and offers Ask AI How to Clear Its Data…, which asks exactly where that app's own clear-cache control is.

8. The Home Screen

The Home Screen page draws every page of your Home Screen the way the device does, with the real wallpaper, folders, widgets and widget stacks, to the device's own measurements. Zoom with ⌘0 (fit), ⌘+ and ⌘−, a pinch on the trackpad, or the Zoom menu. Click the page dots to jump between pages. Click an app to see its details; click a folder to open it.

Icons with a cloud are apps that aren't downloaded (iOS offloaded them, or they are still downloading after a restore). Saved websites show as bookmarks. Apple's built-in apps get a note instead of a details pane.

Rearranging. Drag an app or widget to another spot, another page, the Dock or into a folder; drag a widget onto another of the same size to make a stack. To send something to another page, drag it onto that page's dots or onto the New Page tile after the last page, or right-click an app and choose Move to Page. A new page exists once something is on it, and a page that loses its last icon goes away, as on the device. If you drop an app on a page that is full, the last icon on that page moves on to the next one to make room, as on the device, and Prunable says which; Full Pages in the toolbar switches that to "put the app on the next page with room".

Folders. Drop an app on the middle of another app to make a folder of the two: Prunable asks for a name, suggested from the apps' App Store categories (change it freely). Drop on an app's left or right edge to put the dragged app beside it instead. New Folder in the toolbar makes a folder from apps you tick, on the page you choose. Right-click a folder to Rename Folder…, move it to another page, or Take Folder Apart, and right-click an app for Move to Folder or Take Out of Folder. An app dropped on a folder goes in it.

Stacks. Right-click a stack for Show on Top, Move Up, Move Down, Take Out of Stack and Remove from Stack, and to turn Smart Rotate and Widget Suggestions on or off. Add a widget from the list of widgets Prunable has seen on your devices (a Mac can't see which widgets an app offers, so add a new kind once on the device and Prunable remembers it after the next scan).

Nothing changes on the device until you click Apply (Pro). Apply saves a copy of the current layout on the Mac first, writes the new one, reads it back and tells you whether everything survived, widgets included. Restore puts any saved copy back; Discard throws away unapplied changes. What a widget shows (a city, an album) is set on the device itself.

iPad. iPadOS doesn't tell a Mac whether it uses Larger App Icons. If the drawing doesn't match your iPad, set "This iPad uses Larger App Icons" in Help › Setup Guide… › Settings on the device.

9. Free Up Space and the "Maybe Delete" folder

Say how many gigabytes you need. Prunable suggests apps that can come back (still on the App Store), carry no warning, and weren't opened while it watched, largest first, until the target is met. Tick the ones you agree with and click Put N in the Recycle Bin; you still review and confirm there. "Not suggested, and why" lists every app it skipped with the reason. Until a usage report has arrived (section 14), suggestions are ordered by size alone and the page says so.

Below that, On the device itself lists the places a Mac can't measure or clear (Messages attachments, Recently Deleted photos, Safari data, System Data) with the Settings path for each, and shows how much purgeable space iOS will clear by itself when it needs room. Send to iPhone shows a QR code the device's camera opens, with those steps as a page. Largest videos lists the biggest videos kept on the device so you can copy them to the Mac first; Prunable never deletes photos or videos.

Not sure about some apps? Select them and choose Move to "Maybe Delete" Folder for Two Weeks (right-click, or the button on this page). Prunable creates that folder on the Home Screen and moves the apps into it. A message over the page tells you when it is done: how many apps moved and onto which page, with a button that opens the folder on the Home Screen page. Two weeks later this page shows which ones you opened and which you didn't, with Put the Unopened in the Recycle Bin. End Trial stops tracking; the folder stays until you move the apps out.

Getting the apps back out. Take the Apps Out of the Folder on this page ends the trial and puts every app back on the page the folder was on. To take out just one, drag it out of the folder on the device, or on the Home Screen page here and click Apply. Home Screen › Restore puts back the whole layout from before the trial.

10. Insights: signals and privacy

Signals are cards that say only what the store or the scan actually measured: an update is available (the store's version is newer than the installed one, with its release date), the developer hasn't updated the app in 18 months, the app keeps 1 GB or more of documents and data, the store no longer lists it, or it crashed while Prunable watched. Each card opens the matching apps. Compared with (Pro) picks any earlier saved scan and lists what was added, removed, updated, or grew or shrank by 50 MB or more. Deletion History lives here too.

Privacy shows what each app can ask for, from the permissions it declares and what it may keep doing in the background. Whether you actually allowed something is kept on the device, out of reach of a Mac, and a Mac can't change it, so Prunable gives you a way to check it quickly.

The Privacy Checklist is your to-do list for tightening up the device. Tick the apps worth a look (in the lists on this page, or in the App Privacy Report below), choose Add to Checklist, and for each app the checklist says exactly where to go in Settings and what to look for. Send it to the device by QR code, share it, or print it, and tick the steps off there. Clearing the checklist changes nothing on the device.

Right-click any app on this page (or in the Apps list) to add it to the checklist, Show Settings to Check… for just that app, add it to the Recycle Bin, uninstall it, or Move to "Privacy Review" Folder, which gathers apps you mean to check into one folder on the device's Home Screen. Nothing here can switch a permission off for you: iOS keeps those on the device. Settings › Privacy & Security on the device lists each permission with every app that has it, and Screen Time › Content & Privacy Restrictions can freeze a category once you've set it.

What apps actually used. Turn on Settings › Privacy & Security › App Privacy Report on the device, wait a few days, then save the report with its Share button and choose Import App Privacy Report… here. Prunable shows which apps used location, the camera, microphone, contacts or photos that week, and which contacted domains Apple flags as possibly tracking. Tick the apps you want to look into and add them to the checklist (or add one at a time with the plus button). The file is read on this Mac and only a summary per app is kept.

11. The Reinstall List

The Reinstall List groups every app you have, plus the ones removed with Prunable when Include Removed is on, by category, with an App Store link and a tick box for each. Apps the store no longer lists are flagged because they can't be downloaded again. Ticks are kept per device; Clear Ticks starts over.

iOS gives a Mac no way to install App Store apps, so the list is made to travel to the device: Share (AirDrop, Messages, Mail, Notes…), QR Code (Safari on the device opens the page with live links while the sheet is open), Save to iCloud Drive…, Copy as Markdown into a note, Open in Browser, Print… (Save as PDF from the print panel), or Save as Web Page or Markdown. The page embeds the device's own icons, so it works offline. On a new device, each app row opens the App Store on its Get button: one tap per app down the checklist. Restoring the new device from a backup brings everything back by itself.

File › Export Apps as CSV… (⇧⌘E, Pro) writes the whole Apps table as a spreadsheet, with sizes in bytes and the price column headed "Current App Store price".

12. Overview, Check-Up and All Devices

Overview lays the device out like Apple Configurator: the live Home Screen on the left, facts on the right. Model, capacity, iOS version, serial, phone number, IMEI and ICCID for each SIM or eSIM, carrier, activation and lock state, region, time zone, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth addresses, and the dates of the last iCloud and Mac backups with a warning when they are stale. Identifiers are shown because it is your own device; Hide covers them for screen sharing. Nothing here is stored or sent.

The storage bar splits the disk into System, Apps, App Data, Apple Apps, Photos, Other, Purgeable and Free. Free is what is free right now; Purgeable is what iOS clears when it needs room (caches, downloaded iCloud files). Settings on the device counts part of Purgeable as Available, so its figure falls between the two. Measure Media walks the device's media folders on request (this takes minutes).

Battery shows health against the design capacity, charge cycles, temperature, the charger's wattage and where the power is going, refreshed every 30 seconds while connected; a daily reading builds a trend line. Software Update says whether Apple has released a newer iOS than the one installed.

Check-Up turns all of this into a plain-English report: storage, battery against Apple's rating, backups, apps to think twice about, apps gone from the store. Orange means worth a look. Tick Include serial number and IMEI if you want them on it, then print, save, or Send to iPhone by QR code (Pro). The section Going through a child's iPhone lists things worth looking at together (apps rated 17+, apps that can use location in the background, apps from another Apple Account, whether deleting apps is allowed) and says what only the device itself can show: what the child allowed each app, Screen Time, and who they talk to.

All Devices (Pro) puts every device this Mac knows side by side: free space, battery health, backups and apps to think twice about, from what each last reported. Offline devices show when they were last seen and still open on every page with their last scan, which is useful after a loss or a replacement. Right-click a device and choose Forget Device… to remove its scans, icons, Home Screen copies, Recycle Bin and ticks from this Mac; nothing on the device changes.

13. Phone Change

Setting up this device. Connect the new device and scan it. Prunable compares it with the old device's last saved scan and lists what didn't come over, what can't come back because the store no longer lists it, what it couldn't check, and which sign-in apps to open and check, because authenticators, password managers, wallets and banking apps often don't bring their codes or sign-ins with them. Send List to iPhone makes a page of tappable App Store links for the missing apps. Apps still downloading after a restore may show as missing until they finish.

Handing this device on. Before you sell, trade in or pass on a device: a checklist from a fresh backup and a Reinstall List for the new device through to signing out and Find My. Prunable checks what it can and names the steps that are only on the device.

14. Battery health and app use

iOS keeps no "last used" date a Mac can read. What the device does keep is a short report it writes about once a day with, per app, how many times it was opened and how long it was on screen. Prunable copies each new report whenever the device connects and keeps the figures on your Mac, because the device rotates them away within days. Every usage figure says which period it covers, and an app absent from that period counts as not opened in it. So Screen Time, Not Opened Lately and the suggestions in Free Up Space get more useful every week from the day you first connect, and can't see further back.

If the App use card stays empty for a couple of days, turn on Settings › Privacy & Security › Analytics & Improvements › Share iPhone Analytics on the device. Battery health comes from the device's own fuel gauge and one reading a day is kept for the trend.

15. Pro and your license

Connecting, scanning, every size and store detail, sorting, search, the Home Screen view, warnings, exporting an app's files, the Reinstall List and deleting one app at a time are free. Pro is a one-time purchase of $4.99 and adds batch deletion, filters, saved scans with what changed, CSV export, applying Home Screen changes, deleting files inside an app, printing, saving or sending the Check-Up, and All Devices. When you reach one of those, Prunable shows what Pro adds, with Buy Prunable Pro (opens the checkout in your browser) and Enter License Key….

Your key arrives by email. Enter it under Prunable › Enter License…; Prunable checks it once and keeps it in your keychain. One key covers two Macs. To move it, open Prunable › License… on the old Mac and deactivate there first. If a key isn't recognised, check it for typos; if the Mac is offline, try again when connected.

16. Updates

Prunable checks its update feed about once a day and whenever you choose Prunable › Check for Updates…. On the second launch it asks once whether to check automatically. When a new version is out, a window shows the release notes with Install Update, Remind Me Later and Skip This Version. Install Update downloads the update, verifies that it came from us, swaps the app in place and relaunches it. Release notes for every version are on the Support page.

17. What Prunable keeps on your Mac

Everything Prunable knows about your devices lives in your home folder, under Library/Application Support/com.erratici.prunable/: saved scans, the deletion history, the usage and battery readings, saved Home Screen layouts (the newest 50 per device), the Privacy Checklist, device details and your Dashboard layout, all as small readable files. Icons and wallpapers are cached under Library/Caches/com.erratici.prunable/. A Pro license key is in the keychain. Forget Device… removes one device's files; deleting the two folders removes everything.

It doesn't pile up. Prunable saves a scan every time it reads a device, so it thins them out like Time Machine: every scan from the last 3 days, then one a day for a month, one a week for six months and one a month for two years. That is about a hundred scans and a dozen megabytes for each device, however long you use it. Prunable › Manage Stored Data… (also in Settings) shows where the space goes, lets you pick Standard, Light or Keep everything, lists every saved scan so you can delete some, all older than a week, month or year, or all of a device's, and clears what can be fetched again: icon and wallpaper copies, App Store details, exported lists and Home Screen layout copies. Deleting scans only means What changed compares with the scans that are left.

What leaves the Mac: app names and bundle identifiers go to Apple's public App Store lookup for store details; the update check fetches our feed; Software Update reads Apple's public list; a license check sends your key and this Mac's name to the license service; and Get AI Help opens your browser with a question that names only the app and its kind. Nothing else goes anywhere, and no usage is reported.

18. Keyboard shortcuts

19. Getting help

The Support page covers connection problems, the list of things iOS doesn't let a Mac do, and release notes. For anything else, write to feedback@erratici.com and say which macOS and iOS versions you're on and what you saw. Prunable sends nothing on its own, so we only know what you tell us.